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Everything posted by Danneskjold

I play catcher. The reason I chose Duke so early (most signees will go around November or so from what I hear) is because it's a great school with a great situation I couldn't turn down. When I go to Duke in 2010 I will be one of two catchers, both of us freshman, and if I'm the starter I'll play 3/5 games a week while if I'm second string I'll get the other two. So I'm pretty happy about the situation over all.

Hey everyone, It's been a while since I dropped in so I figured I'd say hi. Life's been about one thing after another after another over here with baseball ending, and football starting, and my committing to play baseball at Duke University come spring 2010. So I figured I'd just drop in to say hi and see how people are doing.

I hardly have time to look through 13 pages of this thread, which is unfortunate because I'm sure there's a lot of value in this thread. I have thought quite a bit about drugs/alcohol etc. and although I would never do them, I think they should be legalized. I do not, however, think that drugs that take you out of a sane state of mind and are proven to make you violent such as meth should be legalized. If it takes people out of their rational state and makes them violent then other laws are not deterrent enough to keep them from committing a crime. As a result it directly affects the well being of another person.

The reason I used abstractions was because of the criteria sheet which specifically named abstractions as what we should use. Also, there was no risk in writing this because senior year you can opt into AP English, so if they don't like it I can override their decision.

Dear Honors Selection Committee, I would be lying if I said that I am the most attentive English student, or the easiest to handle, or even the one that my teachers would say is great to have around. I tend to talk out in class, be sarcastic, and talk to friends after my work is done. However, in spite of all these faults, I do have the merits to be in AP English. In class discussions, although at times I am abrasive, I score very highly because I always know what I am talking about and have a well thought out opinion on a wide variety of topics. I have never scored poorly on an in-class discussion because of these valuable contributions. Class discussions are not the only thing I excel at. I am a very good writer as well. A passive voice is never used by me. I don’t use choppy sentences. My writing is fluent. I also never mispell words. The result of the passive voice never being used by me is that my words are made powerful by the action verbs. Instead of sloppy run on sentences which never seem to end because the person doesn’t use any commas semi-colons or other necessary punctuation I make clear and concise sentences. I absolutely read a wide range of subjects. For instance, when I was a freshman I read Atlas Shrugged a best selling novel. To expand my range, as a sophomore I read 1984 and junior year I read Fahrenheit 451. This is just one example of my wide range in readings. I do not, however, like to make generalizations and abstractions. All generalizations are false, so there is no good in using them, and abstractions are a double-edged sword. I also do not like relating myself to literary works. I am like Howard Roark from The Fountainhead, I do not care how I relate to anyone else, especially not fictional characters. One of the most valuable tools I bring to every English class is my mind. My thinking is very fluent except for those times when things just do not compute. However, it is not enough to be a fluent thinker, one must be original as well. Originality is such a key component because without originality there would be no advancement. My originality is the reason I was able to come up with a round disk on which something could be mounted, and stabilized with more of my discs. The discs turn and cover ground as they do, thus transporting the mounted object. Without originality this advancement would never have been possible. I am also a very elaborate thinker. It is because of my ability to participate in class discussion, as well as my literary prowess and adept mind that I should be accepted into AP Senior English. Thank you for reading my letter. Sincerely, Jeff Kremer

Wish I knew enough about what Ron Paul was saying about our past involvement in the Middle East to know if Paul is right or full of it. I do remember a speech by Paul being somewhat iffy on historical facts regarding how peachy things were after we pulled out of Vietnam.

I wish Michael Vick could continue to play football so that he can prove to everyone that he's overrated as a quarterback and that his style of quarterbacking will never lead a team to a championship without far more support than would be required of a Tom Brady or Payton Manning.

No, because most if not all other races for office don't have the attention and drilling and all the other stuff that the presidential one does. I think/am pretty sure that I am arguing pretty much what Rand was on a different level, although I definitely could be wrong. If you're arguing about something different that may be your problem.(Haven't read the essay about why a woman president would be bad, so I'm not sure I'm arguing the same case.)

Do you think that it is always equally in average Joe and average Jane's best interest to do the same thing when faced with danger? If you concede that men and women are biologically different, you say no. Do you think that a woman that chooses the same as a man (assuming no relation between the two and in exact same circumstances when one option is clearly more beneficial to one and the other is clearly more beneficial to the other) has a psychological problem? Example:Pack of wolves is attacking, you have two options, climb a tree where the nearest limb is 9 feet 6 inches high, or run as fast as you can to some other form of safety dependent completely on foot speed that is attainable not easily but not extremely hard either. I'd jump for the limb, I know I can get my hand on it. I think the girls in their right mind out there (even the ones on the basketball team) would make a run for it. For what it's worth, I consider anyone running for president to have some sort of psychological disorder. Too much bullshit in politics.

If we earn our own living we can live as we choose. The obligation to economically produce and be a part of the movement of society isn't being an end in ourselves, it's having the movement of society be more important than your own individual wants and is just another form of self-sacrifice. The only moral obligation to produce is to the degree that you need and to not leech off of other people. I myself sort of like being hermitish, not fully though.

So what defines an emergency situation in terms of when something should be done about it? There is an emergency situation in Africa regardless of whether I am there or in the United States. The only difference is that I can help a child easier and with less risk to myself in the United States than I can in Africa. So am I in a permanent emergency situation because I can so easily help that child?

If I have no right to not prevent death then I'll get right on sending every cent of my money to those "for less than a cup of coffee a day, a child in Africa can...". There's no difference between the kid next to the vulture and the kid on the tv screen in such a case except you're in less danger from helping the people in the Africa on the tv screen. Michael, you make the crucial mistake of equating a man who would sit and watch a kid die while eating a candy bar, implying him using the kid for entertainment which is certainly depraved, with someone who would just not help the kid for whatever reason (i.e. risk of disease etc.) which at the very least a case can be made for. Take away the right to be depraved and what rights do you have left in their full and complete form? What rights does that not contradict? I have been spending extra time reading Objectivist non-fiction lately and am really surprised as I came back to this forum to see things said where Objectivists think that Objectivism is about "I got mine, Jack, and let everyone else go to hell" and letting the bad people run rampant until it touches me. What happened to the Howard Roarks who would jump into the water to save Wynand on principle because he valued Wynand as Roark said he would do even though he had no moral obligation to do so. When did Objectivism in the eyes of Objectivists deviate from that? The photographer did the right thing. He did more good by taking those photos than he could have by picking up every kid he saw and taking them to the closest food joint. He held a job similar to that of the runner of Marathon in Ancient Greece. So what would I do in the situation if I came across that kid? I'd help him out, even though I have no legal or moral obligation to do so.

Man is an end in himself is the recognized Objectivist position. This means that man's (singular) job is to exist for his own sake and it is not his obligation to work for any greater good. So when it is said that man's life is the standard, it's singular. It's saying that you measure a man's morality based on his life's achievement, not looking at the common good to justify his existence. (I think my explanation is jumbled, I may come back and try to reword it later.)

Seems like they are taking a trait that exists in just about everyone and tries to blow it up and bring out the worst in people. I mean the entire thing is rooted in someone not wanting to be judged in one way or another for one reason or another. I am constantly open to being judged for every part of me. Why? Because I don't care what people judge. There are easier ways to tell if a person is worth befriending or not than by intentionally conforming to a stereotype. Why would a person allow another that power over them? That is, of course, all moot in your case because you dress that way because it is aesthetically pleasing to you. If I like a person the way they dress isn't going to make me like them less or more. Likewise, I would expect that the way I dress isn't the reason my friends do like me. It may for some, however, be the reason that a person doesn't like another. Honestly, when have you ever heard a person say, "I hate the person's guts, but they dress so well that I have to be friends with them." That might apply to a few of the worst one night stands ever, but not to any case where a prolonged friendship has any chance of resulting from it. By dressing in order to expose someone's superficiality, you're basically getting rid of the people who would say something like that, a person who it wouldn't take long to figure out is a fraud anyway. You'll run into more frauds like that running into fake goths who are more inclined to accept you do to the way you dress. Doesn't make much sense does it? Seems like that test of character has a few holes. I wear shorts and t-shirts year round due to the fact that my internal body temperature is higher than average (somewhere in the 99-100 degree average body temperature range) which makes everything seem a lot hotter. I can't stand it when my shorts go more than an inch onto my shins or when my shirt is tight. On especially cold days I wear my varsity jacket, a monument to myself, for myself (and something I have been criticized for by every social group ever to touch the earth including the jocks). On who are you turning it? I have pretty much established throughout that I don't identify with any social group. When have I ever implied that you were one of them? On a less serious note, MENSA, being one of the organizations that you subscribe into if your IQ is above x, has a name that bugs me because it's a latin word for table which has no apparent relation or reason behind it except for that it's latin. The metaphore probably isn't known by half the members. Why arbitrarily use latin? Apparently they have never heard the saying, "Never use a long word when a diminutive would suffice". Someone should start a group like that but call it something like "Genius Club: Because we don't need big words to show we're smart."

So, they decide to expose superficiality by provoking it? That's like saying, "you have drugs on you" after you slipped them into my coat pocket beforehand. I may have been carrying drugs before, you just made sure of it. Either way, why do they care to provoke others in such a way? What do they care if other people are superficial? Do they get some feeling of superiority out of it? If so, why compare?

I have to say, my fondest memory of goths is when I was walking by a group of them in the hall and I walked up to my friend who was sitting in the circle and said, "Geeze, I hate cliques." To which I got resounding approval as I walked away laughing. Seriously though, the only kids I have noticed getting picked on at my school a significant amount is the kid who gets picked on BECAUSE he has a persecution complex and the kid who has some sort of mental disorder which makes him be a complete jerk to everyone else. I personally don't pick on either of them (and have gained some measure of acceptance from both). MSK, The stereotypes are INCREDIBLY accurate.

Does Rand state that it is a moral imperative that women not be president? Or does she say that she suspects something is wrong with a woman who would want to psychologically and therefore would not trust her with the big red button that fires off the nukes? On the subject of Goths, most of the ones I interact with...well, not many want to interact with me. I wear basketball shorts and Nike t-shirts, jeans if they're not too stiff or tight. Goths, as one of the few I talk to explaned, look at me and say "eww jock". I've never understood why anyone likes makeup anyway. I've never seen it as something that significantly makes people more aesthetically pleasing.

You could always edit the posts and put that it is plagiary in big red letters above each post that contains plagiary/in the start of a thread that Victor plagiarized. I've kept my mouth shut mainly because there wasn't much needing to be said and I don't know anything you guys don't.